"No Reservations"
This film, a romantic comedy, is largely pleasant because of a few
good lines of dialog and the pretty people in it (Catherine
Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart -- take your pick). It was predictable, a
variant of the old Disney movie, "the Parent Trap," except that
instead of having a cloned Hailey Mills, there's the better actress,
Abigail Breslin (of "Little Miss Sunshine") trying to bring the two
adults together. Like a lot of (most?) Disney movies, the mother of
the girl played by Breslin gets killed off in the first reel.
(However, Disney didn't produce it.) As I told my wife, "it was better
than 'Evening'" (another "chick flick).
"Sunshine."
My wife didn't go with me to see this, because it was a "dick flick."
It was pretty good, however. If "No Reservations" was a B-, this was a
B+ or A-. There was a lot of stuff in it that seemed reminiscent of
other space movies ("Alien," "2001," etc.) But it's hard to avoid
repeating some themes and images while staying within a genre: how
many folk-rockers have been able to escape the shadow of Dylan? I like
the fact that, like "Alien," you just barely see the "monster." That
made it scarier, more tense. More importantly, the main theme is
extremely interesting: as the spaceship Icarus II gets closer and
closer to the Sun (which needs a jump-start), some of them are
overcome by religious awe. Thus, the plot...
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
